FROM MY LIFE

The Most Beautiful Christmas Story

An early Christmas gift, and the power of social media

In my post, Lies of Past Times, I shared some of my histories, about being pregnant at sixteen, and how the father of my daughter just disappeared. Or so I thought, as in November 2020 — 37.5 later — I discovered my parents had forbidden him to ever contact me again.

I also mentioned my daughter had put a request on Facebook — in a special group — for people to help her find her father. That was on 19 November 2021.

They found him!

It took two people in the group a couple of hours to come up with a list of men with his initials and surname, and their dates of birth. None of those matched the date of birth I always had in my memories. The only thing I was unsure about was what way round the date and month should be. Was the day the month or the month the day?

Two days after she had posted that message in the group, the people told my daughter they had found her father. The date of birth didn’t match my memory, but by then I was seriously doubting myself.

My daughter and I went on a photography trip (I still need to share those photos!), and were both excited as they were going to call him the next day.

The next morning when I woke up, I had a message from her: it wasn’t him!

Taking a step back

She was sad and disappointed and angry too because she had focused on this one man so intently. We had seen pictures of his children and thought one of that stranger’s daughters looked like my daughter.

A sure case of wishful thinking!

A week later, they called another man from that list, but it wasn’t him either.

This was almost two weeks after she had posted her message, and the rollercoaster she was riding when the people got up her hopes every time, left her mentally fatigued.

She needed to let it rest, so took a step back from it all.

A revelation

In the meantime, I had an appointment with my coach. I shared with her what I had written in my previous post:

But I have one thing I want to do when and if she finds him. I want him to know it was never my choice not to have him in my or our child’s life. I feel incredibly strong about this, and choke on tears thinking of the pain he might have endured thinking I agreed with my parents; that it was my choice to push him out of his child’s life.

The coach listened intently — like she always does. When I stopped talking, she said she saw how much it upset me, and heard how hard I defended myself. Then she said something that just made me stare at her:

You are placing him above you, while you and him stood next to each other when this happened. You did nothing to him. Your parents did. You are not responsible for your parents’ actions. They are. They did this to both of you.

It sounds cliché, but at that moment, a burden fell off my shoulder, because once more that little monkey sat on my shoulder and said: what would he think of you? I brushed it off and told it to take a hike, because what happened back then wasn’t my wish. My parents went against my wishes, around my back, and that’s on them.

That date of birth

Just over two weeks after her message, and after a few days of rest, my daughter reconnected with the two people who were previously helping her. One admitted they had gotten stuck, but the other obtained another list with names and dates of birth.

My daughter sent me an image of the list, with the message: Do you see what I see?

My eyes immediately fell on the date of birth I had remembered for 38 years!

We received some images, and the one that struck us the most was of a young woman. It was like looking into my daughter’s face — only it wasn’t her. We also received an image of the man we thought might be her father, but after 38 years, he looked nothing like he did back when he was a young man of eighteen years old.

Once more, they planned to call him the next day, resulting in a restless night for both my daughter and me.

The next morning

Only an hour after I had started work, my daughter called me.

In tears.

“Mom, it’s him. It’s him. They’ve found my dad. I have his number.”

I dropped everything and went to her place.

Slowly, the story unfolded (and it still is).

It turned out her father had been looking for me for years, as he never knew his daughter’s name until the morning he received that call. He could never find me, as I don’t use my maiden name on social media. We learned he had always known my parents had forbidden contact, and I had nothing to do with it.

Also that his new family always knew somewhere on this earth he has a daughter. This knowledge meant so much to my daughter. Knowing he had never denied her existence, knowing he had been looking for me, so he could find her.

And it meant and means a lot to me too.

She had the warmest welcome she could ever have imagined. He called my daughter ‘the missing beat of his heart’. This is the best possible outcome of her search for her biological father.

The way she has found him, the way those people helped her find her dad only 2.5 weeks after her message, is the power of social media. This is the good side of it. People help each other with no other motivation than wanting to help.

A new chapter

A whole new chapter has started. Father and daughter have a lot to catch up with, and I am extremely grateful my daughter finally has that missing piece of her life puzzle. My heart overflows with happiness for them both. Them not being in each other’s life was something I had never wanted.

What’s happening now is already incredible, but there’s more: he wants me in his life too, not only his daughter.

No, not like that.

When he and I first talked on the phone, the day after we found him, he said all these years I had a special place in his heart, and where we are now both happily married, we will be lifelong friends.

I agree with him and look forward to that, but even if that doesn’t happen, it’s okay. The most important of all is I want my daughter to finally get to know her father.

It’s her birthright!

Also, read this article by Ilana Lydia:

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